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The fascinating true story of how a group of visionary attorneys helped make American business synonymous with Big Business, and Wall Street the center of the financial world The legal profession once operated on a smaller scale - folksy lawyers arguing for fairness and justice before a judge and jury. But by the year 1900, a new type of lawyer was born, one who understood business as well as the law. Working hand in glove with their clients, over the next two decades these New York City "white shoe" lawyers devised and implemented legal strategies that would drive the business world throughout the twentieth century. These lawyers were architects of the monopolistic new corporations so despised by many, and acted as guardians who helped the kings of industry fend off government overreaching. Yet they also quietly steered their robber baron clients away from a "public be damned" attitude toward more enlightened corporate behavior during a period of progressive, turbulent change in America. Author John Oller, himself a former Wall Street lawyer, gives us a richly-written glimpse of turn-of-the-century New York, from the grandeur of private mansions and elegant hotels and the city's early skyscrapers and transportation systems, to the depths of its deplorable tenement housing conditions. Some of the biggest names of the era are featured, including business titans J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, lawyer-statesmen Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes, and presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. Among the colorful, high-powered lawyers vividly portrayed, White Shoe focuses on three: Paul Cravath, who guided his client George Westinghouse in his war against Thomas Edison and launched a new model of law firm management - the "Cravath system"; Frank Stetson, the "attorney general" for financier J. P. Morgan who fiercely defended against government lawsuits to break up Morgan's business empires; and William Nelson Cromwell, the lawyer "who taught the robber barons how to rob," and was best known for his instrumental role in creating the Panama Canal. In White Shoe, the story of this small but influential band of Wall Street lawyers who created Big Business is fully told for the first time.



About the Author

John Oller

John Oller, a lawyer, is the author of seven books, including "The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution" (Da Capo, 2016) . His "American Queen: The Rise and Fall of Kate Chase Sprague - Civil War 'Belle of the North' and Gilded Age Woman of Scandal," was published by Da Capo in 2014. It has been praised by Pulitzer prize-winning author Debby Applegate as "a terrific work of historical research and reconstruction" which tells "the story of the Civil War and its scandalous aftermath - its assassinations, impeachments and sexual hijinks - from an entirely fresh perspective." His first book, "Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew" (Limelight Editions, 1997) , was lauded by film critic Leonard Maltin, who called it "an exceptional piece of work" and "an outstanding biography . . . among the best I've read in years." A recent update to "Jean Arthur" can be found at John's website blog (www.johnollernyc.com) , along with some new Kate Chase information. Born in Huron, Ohio, John is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a B.A. in journalism (summa cum laude) , having written and edited for the daily student newspaper, the Lantern, and interned as a reporter for such newspapers as the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Rochester Times-Union. His undercover exposé on the infiltration of the Ohio State campus by the "Moonies" religious cult led to his selection as a congressional journalism intern in Washington, D.C., where he wrote press releases for a Michigan congressman.After college he obtained his law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (magna cum laude) , and joined the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York as an associate in the litigation department. For many years he represented Major League Baseball in many high-profile cases, including the celebrated George Brett "Pine Tar" case and the Pete Rose gambling case. As a partner in the firm, he went on to specialize in complex commercial and securities litigation, and was a principal author of the Audit Committee Report for Cendant Corporation (at the time, the most massive fraud in American corporate history) ; the New York Times called the report a definitive case study in the area of accounting irregularities and fraud. He taught legal writing as part of his firm's continuing legal education program for many years, and is the author of "One Firm - A Short History of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, 1888 -- ". He holds the record as a four-time winner of the firm's annual golf tournament in Florida. At the end of 2011, John retired from active legal practice to concentrate on his writing career. Since then, in addition to "American Queen," he has published an e-book, "An All-American Murder," a true crime story of a murder in Columbus, Ohio in 1975. It led to the reopening and resolution of the 40-year-ol



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